Fermat's Last Theorem
by MissDillyDilly
Summary: An intriguing meeting on board the Enterprise D leads to an unexpected reunion many years later for Data and an old friend.


**Fermat's Last Theorem**

**Summary**: An intriguing meeting on board the _Enterprise D_ leads to an unexpected reunion many years later for Data and an old friend.

**Disclaimers**: I have made no money from writing this story. I do not own anything connected with any of the Star Trek franchises, which all seem to belong to a complex combination of CBS, Viacom and Paramount. Neither do I own either Commander Data or Brent Spiner – if I did, you think I'd be wasting my time typing???

**A/N**: For what it's worth, this story ignores the events catalogued in the SCE books. Can't keep up with all that stuff!

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Data was wary – in that inarticulate, expressionless way androids have of being wary – when Ensign Sonya Gomez plumped herself down in front of him as he quietly surveyed the stars from his comfortable niche in ten-forward. Following a brief discussion with Captain Jean-Luc Picard, he had been concentrating on proving Fermat's Last Theorem: the Captain had stated that it remained unproved and, although Data had not contradicted him, he was sure Picard was wrong. Before he informed him of his mistake, however, he wanted to prove it from first principles himself, in order to be able to explain it to his superior officer.

It was turning out to be something of a challenge.

And now young Ensign Gomez, all smiles and eyes and drinks and long, flowing hair, was sitting opposite, clearly intent on engaging him in conversation. He filed his progress on the theorem and turned his attention to her: not needing sleep gave him many more hours than others to indulge his whims, and he would not deny the wishes of those who lost a third of their lives in voluntary unconsciousness.

"May I help you, Ensign?" he asked companionably. He noticed that she had not let go of her drinks, and relaxed a little.

"Oh, er – yes, sir. I wondered – that is, if you'd like – "

Data stretched out a hand and carefully took one of the glasses from her. "You are wondering if I would like to join you for a drink," he said. "I have no objection, if that is what you wish."

She grinned: a nervous, sudden and rather appealing grin. "I thought I ought to get to know some of the senior officers, sir. I know Commander La Forge well, but no-one else as yet. I think I ought to remedy that."

Data sipped his drink: its texture was thick and slightly fibrous, and an analysis of its molecular composition indicated that it was a fruit-based mixture containing pulp, sugars and synthehol. He imagined it tasted good. "I am at your service, Ensign. What do you wish to know?"

She pouted. "Well that's a bit bald… Tell me – tell me about your life!"

Data considered. Emotionally unsophisticated as he was, he nevertheless understood that she did not really wish him to recite dates and events, examinations or battles. She wanted something that would fire her curiosity – something with human interest. But, he reflected with what he would later recognise as regret, he was not human, so what could he find of interest to tell her? He searched his personal files in an effort to find something which might engage his young companion. Her hair, he noticed, was loose and lush, and he wondered how much work was necessary to keep it that way.

"I regret that my life 'story', if I were to tell it, would merely reflect the log entries of the two ships on which I have served," he said. "I have no emotions to engage, no personal perspective to relate." As a commentary on a life, he thought, it was sadly lacking.

She smiled, and a synapse controlling one of the emotions Data did not possess fired quietly, sending a message to a group of neurons buried deep within his complex circuitry. The nature of the message was not recognised however, and it was therefore filed without further consideration for future processing. "How – does that make you feel?"

Data's face became sardonic. "You have just asked a circular question, Ensign. "You have asked me how I feel about having no feelings, which is not, I believe, a useful avenue of enquiry."

"Oh dear," she grinned. "I might be at home with Geordi and his engines – I mean Commander La Forge – but I don't do too well in philosophy, do I?"

Data registered that she was experiencing embarrassment and frustration and, knowing that they were generally considered to be negative emotions, thought that it was surely his duty to dispel them. Briefly, he wished he could experience them with her – negative they might be, but at least they were emotions. He sighed the strange, breathless sigh he had perfected over the years. "I would dearly like to be able to share in human feeling," he began. "Which I suppose may be a feeling in itself, although that of course is illogical. I have no feelings – my creator Dr Soong presumably considered them unnecessary or undesirable – but I have, over the years, come to recognise them in others, and to regulate my conduct accordingly. In doing so, I hope I have developed a degree of empathy." He paused, accessing thousands of memories in temporal sequence to see if his hypothesis was correct, and found that, for the most part, it was. "At the Academy I was inexperienced, inconsiderate and, I imagine, unpopular. I had no appreciation that consistent academic excellence was offensive to certain of my peers. I still struggle with the idea that anything less than one's best is acceptable."

"And being an android, your best is usually perfect?"

"It is." Data's brow creased slightly. "That is not boasting: it is simply a fact. Although I have many friends on board the _Enterprise_, whom I would miss should they leave, I am frequently reminded of the differences between myself and the crew. I am constantly aware that I am unique." He paused, and the files containing the entries relating to Lore seemed to open themselves without any instruction from him: he assumed that his autonomic programming considered they would be useful. "I had a brother, but I was forced to destroy him. By my own hand, I am truly alone."

Falling silent, he became aware that his companion was staring at him as if transfixed, and knew that he had misjudged his words. He always took the opportunity to engage his colleagues in conversation, although this one had been unwontedly personal in nature, but had seen this particular expression too often not to understand its significance: it meant that he had spoken for too long, or in too much depth, on a topic that did not interest his listener. Sometimes he just ploughed on, desperate to maintain the fiction of human interaction just a little longer: sometimes he simply stopped in mid-sentence, letting others take the conversation elsewhere. Few things reinforced his sense of isolation more than the expression Gomez wore at this particular moment.

Her next gesture, however, did not conform to expected parameters: she leaned across the illuminated table and placed her hand over his. Silhouetted in the soft half-light, their skin colours almost merged. "I'm so sorry, Commander," she said gently. "You seem – so invulnerable."

"Indeed, I am not. Although I would not bleed if damaged, were I to be dismantled at other than designated bodily intersections, I would leak fluids necessary to my continued existence and, without those fluids, I would eventually cease to function. Temporarily, of course – that is another difference between us."

She shook her head, and again he took in the glorious mass of thick, dark hair. He wondered why it should affect him so: it was after all common to many species. He found himself comparing it to Tasha's short, fair mop, and mentally recoiled. Tasha was special in so many ways, not least because of the brief, fiery relationship they had shared when both were under the influence of a virus that had affected them in virtually identical ways. He had not felt alone then, and had bitterly regretted the return to normality when it came. But, without such alien inducements, he believed he was unable to experience sexual attraction: so what was this strange reaction in his positronic net which seemed to have spontaneously erupted? It was impossible that he was reacting to her in such a way – it was not within his programming! Yet he knew her hand was strong and warm, and he was acutely aware that its pressure on his own was just enough to confirm that it was conscious and intended. Was she – did she – how should he respond, and what if he was wrong?

It made Fermat seem like child's play.

"I'm so sorry," Gomez repeated. "I didn't realise… You know, we don't see you as that different." Data looked at her, puzzled. "I think – if you don't mind my saying so, sir, that many of the differences are of your own making."

"Ensign?" Data was genuinely puzzled now and – as he would have put it himself – intrigued.

"Because you've been alone in the past, you assume you'll always be alone." She paused. "I'm not putting this well, am I?" Data shook his head. "Believe me, Commander – we're not so different. If it weren't for your skin, you could pass for human – no, damn it! That's not what I meant either…"

"I am very pleased to hear it, Ensign. I am not sure that I wish to 'pass for human'."

"But you must know what I mean!" He saw in her eyes a yearning to be understood. "Prejudice based on the colour of someone's skin – we left that behind centuries ago!"

_Not entirely_, thought Data, but did not voice the words. "The differences are, as the aphorism has it, more than skin deep," he said. "But I appreciate your sentiments, Ensign, even though they were – interestingly – expressed."

Gomez sighed. "I drop clangers like I drop drinks," she said morosely.

His attention thus drawn to the table before them, Data noticed that Gomez was still holding his hand, and that a few surreptitious glances were now being thrown their way. Strangely reluctant to break that comfortable contact, he nevertheless drew his hand away from hers. "We are attracting attention, Ensign," he said softly.

"So?" Data blinked: it was a response he had often observed that appeared to denote surprise, and he could not deny that she had surprised him. "If you don't want to be seen with me, Commander, then I certainly don't want to be seen with you!"

Data was astonished. What had he done to provoke such an outburst? He had merely tried to save her the gossip that might well be the result of being seen to hold an android's hand in public. And an android who was a senior officer, at that. He felt a surge of negativity in his neural net, and wondered if he was capable of experiencing dark emotions – albeit in a very limited way – after all. For all her fine words, perhaps Gomez was no different from those among the crew who viewed him as, at best, a lower life form and, at worst, a walking computer.

Which, of course, he was.

"I apologise," he said. "I was attempting to save you any embarrassment: you may view me as almost human, but many of our colleagues do not." He stood, wanting to leave the confusion of human emotions and get back to the safety and sterility of machines. "Thank you for the drink Ensign, and for your company. Both were most – pleasant."

He turned and walked away before Gomez could reply. He kept seeing that thick, dark hair, shiny and strong and reflecting all the colours of the rainbow, and found the graphics files he had generated surprisingly difficult to close. Eventually, and not without a tinge of regret, he managed to do so. He should delete them, he knew: they had no practical value. He would delete them, he thought. But not just yet.

As he returned to his quarters, he completed his proof of the temporarily forgotten Theorem, and his disappointment at the conversation with Gomez was tempered by the satisfaction of having successfully completed his task. The best things in life, he reflected, were sometimes worth the wait.

* * *

Almost thirteen years later, Data found himself walking curiously through the empty corridors of a very different _Enterprise_. At this moment, discounting himself – as some people still did – there was no living thing aboard the great starship, other than the inevitable microbes, bacteria, viruses and single-celled organisms that accompanied humans wherever they travelled. He found the sensation of aloneness, mirroring as it did the burden he always carried, strangely companionable.

He moved quietly through every corridor of the ship, entering and examining every public space, absorbing anew her sweepingly elegant lines, her plush but functional furnishings, the aesthetic beauty of her fine new engines. As he gazed up at the throbbing heart of the _Enterprise E_'s power, he found himself mourning the _D_, and even some of the features of the _E_ which had been removed by this refit, and for which he had developed an unreasonably deep affection. He reached out and ran his artificial hands over the sleek instrumentation, and suddenly understood his Captain's viscerally physical reaction to Zephram Cochrane's primitive rocket back in the twenty-first century: the sheer beauty, the almost sensuality of the engineering took one's breath away.

"Having fun, Commander?"

To say that Data jumped would be to imply that he had been so absorbed in his almost voluptuous consideration of the ship's engines that, even with his acute sensory abilities, he had been unaware of anyone's approach.

Data jumped.

When he turned, he was greeted by a face he had never expected to see again, although over the years he had thought about it more frequently than professionalism alone warranted. "Ensign Gomez!" he exclaimed, aware that he had failed to control the note of pleasure in his voice. His eyes went automatically to her hair, piled on top of her head now but apparently as thick and luxurious as ever, and he raised his hand three millimetres to touch it before his social programming aborted the action as entirely inappropriate. He had never got around to deleting those files.

She grinned. "Lieutenant now!"

Data smiled – still not a fully human smile, but an easier expression than he could have managed before. "So I see. Congratulations – Lieutenant."

"Thank you, sir. How do you like my engines?"

"Your – you are responsible for the _Enterprise E_'s refit?"

"No! I just helped with this bit. I couldn't resist the opportunity of working with Geordi again."

"Ah – I understand." Data turned back to the huge warp housing, behind whose thin walls was so much power – so much death. He remembered his experiences at the hands of the Borg queen in what had been this very space, and shivered in spite of himself. "Much has happened since you left the ship, Lieutenant."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I've kept up with things – once you've served aboard the _Enterprise_, nothing else is quite the same."

"Why did you leave?" Data asked, curious. "Your relationship with Geordi was a good one, and I was under the impression that we – " he stopped. He understood what he had felt at that table in ten-forward all those years ago, and found that his feelings on seeing her again were much the same. But at least he recognised them now, and could indulge or ignore them accordingly. He looked into her eyes. In contrast to his own, they were dark, dark as midnight skies and deep as the depths of space. He suddenly very much wanted to lose himself in those eyes.

"That we…" she replied.

"That we were friends. You have probably forgotten a brief conversation we had – "

"Forgotten? Of course not!" she interrupted, and he was surprised by her vehemence. "I have a good memory, Commander."

With a sudden synaptic surge, Data suspected it was something more than that. He was more experienced – more cynical – than thirteen years ago, but the new idea that had wandered into his artificial brain was not an unpleasant one. He let it go, however: he needed time to draw out her reaction, and assess how it might have a bearing on his own. The positrons in one particular area of his neural net were firing at a greatly-increased rate, and he found himself enjoying the sensation wickedly. What a difference the chip made! Then he cheated, and did something no human could have done: he ring-fenced the reactions, leaving them fully functional and, still experiencing them in all their delicious sharpness, turned the rest of his consciousness to a discussion of the new engines, which was almost as enjoyable. If he had thought of it, he might have smirked: running two programs simultaneously was so simple, and meant he had a very fulfilling morning.

Two hours later however, and no longer the sole inhabitants of the great ship as engineers, cleaners, programmers and designers began to fill up her hallways, he realised that Gomez was flagging: despite her enthusiasm she was, after all, only human. He held up a hand as she began to take him through yet another set of specifications. "I think, Lieutenant, that we should adjourn for refreshment. I do not require it, but I perceive that you are becoming fatigued."

She flexed her shoulders, moving beneath her uniform in ways that Data felt he really should not have noticed so acutely. "I don't normally talk so much, I admit," she said. "I used to – as you know – but I'm more of a doing person now. Where should we go?"

Data had a flash of inspiration. "Is ten-forward still operational?"

She grinned. "It certainly is."

* * *

Once again they sat in the comfortable bar, nursing rich fruit concoctions and listening to the quiet music, clearly audible in the near-silence. They had, by unspoken mutual consent, chosen the same table as they had occupied thirteen years ago.

"Just like old times, eh?"

"I hope not," he said, without thinking. "You are no longer an Ensign with little experience, but a Lieutenant with responsibility for refitting part of Starfleet's flagship. I am no longer merely a machine without the ability to recognise or process feelings, but someone whose emotional landscape is as fully functional as that of any human." She looked at him curiously, and he realised that – yet again – he might have said too much.

"I never thought you were without feeling, Commander."

"But in ten-forward you said – you asked me – your words implied otherwise."

"I'm sorry," she said simply. "I suppose I can tell you now. I was there – on a bet."

It took Data nearly three seconds to process the implications of this statement, and he drew himself a little away from her. So, he thought, yet again he had been the victim of some plan its creators had considered amusing and which, presumably, he had brought to a premature conclusion by leaving when he had. All these years he had treasured the memory of that conversation, that beautiful hair, and all the while it had been a joke. He set his face: his still vague dreams of enjoying something closer than engines with Gomez before the _Enterprise_ left the starbase dissolved like crystals in acid, leaving only sludge behind.

"I understand. I imagine I was the unwitting victim of many such schemes. I am sorry, though – I had placed value on what I thought of as our friendship."

"But I did want to be your friend! It just – didn't work out that way."

"It seems an unwise method of forging a relationship," Data said drily. "I assume I was the object of – of much barrack room discussion?"

She hung her head, hiding her face from his unforgiving gaze. "You all were. Even Captain Picard. Thank God I didn't get him!"

"Lieutenant?"

"We constructed lives for you all – quite lurid lives, if I remember rightly." Data raised his eyebrows. "We were all fascinated by you. We imagined you to be the perfect sex machine."

Data stared. He was speechless. He considered a dozen responses to Gomez' remark, and found none sufficiently biting, casual or funny. He picked up his drink and drained it in a single gulp. A deep stab of regret for opportunities lost surged through him: if only they knew. If only they had known. If only they had realised how innocent he really was… The old Data might have left at that point to nurse his wounds, but the new man was made of sterner stuff. "So what were you doing in ten-forward that evening?" he said, his voice carefully neutral. "Why did you come and speak to me?"

"Like I said, I was there on a bet," she replied. "To see if I could seduce you. I volunteered for it. I lost."

There was a pause. Data found himself thrilling to the idea of what might have happened had he remained at the table. Another opportunity missed. "And if you had won?" he asked, his innate inquisitiveness getting the better of him, as it so often did.

"I think – I think that, for a few hours, I would have been very happy," she said, looking at him levelly. "And I wouldn't have had to do Peter's Jefferies Tube inspection duties for the next month. Well, too late now – I was young and foolish, and I made a mess of that, like so much else I tried." She sipped her drink. "Anyway, thank you, for valuing – well, for being nice about it."

"Am I to assume that you argued that you would be successful?" Data enquired.

Gomez squirmed a little, and again her body moved beneath her loose, workaday clothing in a fashion that almost mesmerised him. Her words had indicated that, in spite of the crassness that had led to her actions all those years ago, there might have been some feeling involved. Was he foolish to wonder if they might be able to salvage something from the wreckage: if she had volunteered then, what might she do now? Something that he knew he wanted, and was beginning to suspect that she might too? "Yes," she said shortly. "Kirri and Tom were undecided, and Peter was of the opinion that you hadn't been programmed for that sort of thing, so the only way to prove it was to try it out."

Data recognised the first names of three other ensigns assigned to engineering – none of whom, as far as he knew, had gone on to particularly distinguished careers. Perhaps that was hardly surprising. "You could simply have asked me."

"I don't think so!"

He considered. "No – perhaps not. You could ask me now."

She laughed nervously. "Again, I think not." But she did not break his gaze for a few seconds, and he knew his suspicions were correct: she had not volunteered for the dare simply because she wanted to play a prank. She had been attracted to him then, and she was attracted to him now. If she could accept that – and accept that he felt the same way… All he had to do was lead her there.

He stood up, and turned to the window. Instead of stars and the limitless darkness of space, he was greeted by bright lights, cruising shuttles and the claustrophobia of the starbase that surrounded them. "You may remember," he said, "I observed then that people were staring when you placed your hand on mine."

"I remember." She had risen to stand beside him, and he could feel her heat as they almost touched.

He pointed to the myriad ant-like forms that moved beyond and through the lights of the starbase, scurrying about their anonymous, vital tasks. "I believe that I am correct in saying that any one of those people would, as we stand here, be able to observe us."

"Yes." She moved closer, and he deleted the ring-fencing from the positronic area he had isolated earlier. Immediately, he felt himself bathed in warmth: the physical and mental impact was overwhelming, and beautiful.

"I think," he said, turning towards her, "that with your permission we should continue our conversation elsewhere. I – " he lifted up his hand – the one further away from the window – and stroked a strand of that heavy black hair away from her face " – would like to do things that I would not wish to be observed." He stood very still, and waited for her response.

Without warning, her eyes blazed into slow, dark fire. She said nothing, but slowly put a hand to his neck and drew his mouth down to hers. He wrapped his fingers in her hair, pulling it loose from its clips and ties, and lost himself in a deep, liquid kiss that was, for both of them, the fulfilment of years of unconscious longing.

The gentle intensity of that kiss, and the joy and passion of the hours that followed, were as perfect as anything Data had ever known. Later, lying in his quarters with his head buried in that astonishingly rich mass of curls, her quiet, exhausted breath delicate on his skin and the distant sounds of the _Enterprise_'s refit echoing around them, he was quietly, completely contented.

He had always wanted to think that she cared and the final proof, so long in coming, had been exquisitely worth the wait.

_The End_


End file.
